Originally Posted by
ConciergeMike
True, yes, but in infrequent (to me) instances. I've witnessed flights boarding that way but never been on one.
On many UA routes it is not uncommon to have 60-80% of the flight to be elites. If you have that how do you board? SFO-ORD, ORD-EWR, MSP-ORD, MSP-DEN, LAX-SFO, just to name a few.
I was on a flight from MSP to ORD and the GA said that 100% of plane was elite (I didn't buy that, but I bet it was a large majority) and they were going to board by row. and yes, this was since they implemented the boarding groups.
I can tell you that everyone in the boarding area was pissed. It took 3x to board because everybody had 2 bags. So many checked luggage that day.